Out & About Summer 2019

Out&About leisure

Pick of the ARTS

Summer Song Garsington Opera Throughout June and July www.garsingtonopera.org

Don Giovanni, Mozart’s renowned telling of the Don Juan tale encompasses the women he pursues and the ones who pursue him in return, including some of his most glorious music. Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Henry James’ novella with a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, this is regarded by many as the finest of Britten’s stage works. Secret encounters and mistaken identities are resolved in Offenbach’s story of Fantasio – a melancholy, moon-struck dreamer who yearns after an unreachable princess – and the season is rounded off with three walled garden recitals of the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610. The long dinner interval lasts about 85 minutes, dine in the restaurant, book a picnic or bring your own.

In the idyllic setting of the Wormsley Estate, Garsington Opera, some 40 minutes north of Reading, offers a thrilling choice of operas: Dance is at the heart and soul of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride , a story of thwarted love and arranged marriage, from the vibrant overture to a riotous and festive polka. There’s a circus, an escaped bear, heart-stopping love duets and a rousing drinking song.

The show must go on… Kiss Me, Kate The Watermill, Bagnor www.watermill.org 01635 46044 July 25 - September 21

Showbiz shenanigans together with Cole Porter’s jazz-inflected score form a sparkling tribute to theatre in all its greasepaint and glory as onstage romance collides with backstage drama in the musical comedy Kiss Me, Kate . When egocentric actor-manager Fred Graham and his fiery ex-wife Lilli Vanessi find themselves starring opposite each other in a musical version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of Shrew , sparks fly. Meanwhile in another corner of Ford’s Theatre, Fred’s current flame and rising star Lois Lane attempts to tame her gambler boyfriend, only to be thwarted by the arrival of a couple of gangsters who somehow find themselves centre stage. Chaos may reign on and offstage, but the show must go on… The iconic music and razor-sharp wit of Kiss Me, Kate are catapulted into the limelight by a cast of actor-musicians performing showstopping numbers including Too Darn Hot, Another Op’nin’ Another Show, Brush Up Your Shakespeare and So in Love .

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O&A SUMMER 2019